1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to an interactive book allowing a child to associate a particular written word or phrase with its aural equivalent.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Due to its importance in a child's education, great emphasis has been placed on teaching a child to read. During a child's development, the child initially learns to associate various sounds or words with particular objects. For example, the child would learn to enunciate a particular word such as “mama”, “dada”, “key” or “cheese”. Once this person or object comes into view, the child would then begin to pronounce the word associated with this person or object. As the child's learning ability increases, these sounded words would become associated with the written word. This would be true regardless of whether a child's speech and reading pattern would be developed utilizing a phonics approach or by associating the entire verbalized word with an entire written word. Utilizing either approach, as the child grows, his or her reading skills would also increase.
Typically, the approach to teaching a child to read would require the child to read in the presence of an adult or older child or in the educational setting of a classroom including one teacher and a number of students. In either situation, the child would attempt to read a series of words or a rudimentary story and, if the child is successful in correctly pronouncing a word or phrase, the child would be rewarded by the teacher or other individual indicating that the child has correctly pronounced the word, words or phrase. While the child could attempt to read this book by himself or herself, the child would have no indication whether the words were correctly pronounced.
Various devices have been developed which attempt to teach a child to associate the spoken word with the written word. These devices could take the form of an electronic book or computerized device as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,997,374, issued to Simone; U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,557, issued to Hyman et al; U.S. Pat. No. 5,538,430, issued to Smith et al; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,379, issued to Hall et al. For example, the patent to Simone discloses a teaching device provided with a console unit into which a work booklet is placed. The console unit also includes an audio program capable of reproducing the words provided on each of the pages of the work booklet. A plurality of light emitting diodes is provided beneath each of the words. Therefore, when the audio program is played, each of the lights would be illuminated separately corresponding to the particular word which is verbalized by the audio program. While this teaching device would allow a child to associate an audio word with a written word, this device would not be helpful to assist a child in determining whether the child is correctly pronouncing a written word.
Similar to the Simone device, the device described in the Hyman et al patent is directed to an electronic book which enunciates words or phrases corresponding to sentence parts and a complete sentence. These words or phrases are arranged in particular categories and by depressing various buttons, an audio sentence is produced. However, similar to the Simone teaching device, this toy does not allow a child to associate the child's pronounced word with the written word.
The patent to Smith et al describes a self-reading child's book displaying a sequence of indicia, such as words. A light emitting diode is associated with each of the words. Therefore, if the child would activate a switch associated with a line of words or an entire page of words, a voice synthesizer would be driven to verbalize the word as well as to illuminate the light emitting diode associated with each word. However, similar to the Simone and Hyman et al patents, no provision is made to determine whether the child is correctly pronouncing the word.
The patent to Hall et al shows a computerized method of displaying a self reading child's book provided with a computer display screen having sequential words forming a story read by a child. The child would have the ability of moving a cursor or a type of visual indicator corresponding to the words on the screen. However, as was true with the previous references, a word pronounced by the child is not associated with any of the written words, thereby failing to indicate to the child whether that word was pronounced correctly by the child.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,636,173, issued to Mossman, describes a method of teaching reading involving a combined video and audio recording utilizing words projected upon a screen, such as motion picture films or videotape. The audio recording would produce an aural output and each of the words would be temporarily highlighted in synchronization with the spoken word. It is important to note that the rate of recording and synchronization with the temporary highlighting of the pronounced syllable or word cannot be altered once a recording has been made. Utilizing this system, it would be difficult to teach a child to recognize the sound of a particular word, since the speed of the recording might be too fast to allow the child to associate a spoken word with its written equivalent.
Another manner in which a child is taught to pronounce a particular word would be to associate the spoken word with the written word by allowing the child to picture the movement of the lips of an individual or animated character, as the word is being pronounced. U.S. Pat. No. 6,181,351, issued to Merrill et al is directed to a system for synchronizing the moveable mouths of animated characters with recorded speech and includes a speech recognition engine, the engine is used to associate one of a plurality of mouth movements with a particular word or phenome. However, no provision is made for allowing the non-recorded speech generated by a child to be used with a device for highlighting a series of words in a sequential manner based upon the child's speech and synchronizing this speech with mouth movements produced by the animated character.